Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas, Randy Galloway column

All things considered, Josh Hamilton is also the most complex story ever around here, which is also why he's the best story ever.

We watched one-game history this week. Four home runs, 18 total bases on a 5-for-5 evening in Baltimore. Meanwhile, we have also been watching Hamilton's early start to maybe seasonal history. So what do the Rangers do next?

Sign Josh right now to the Albert or Prince crazy money? Or let it ride into free agency next November when the money could really get insane?

Nice guy, Josh Hamilton. But we know about the personal demons. We know they do surface. We know about the injury history. How wise is it to mix crazy money with those demons and that kind of injury history?

Risky, yes. But right now, if you're the Rangers you've got to pay the guy. No, it's not my money, just my opinion that in this free agency year for Hamilton, go ahead, get a deal done.

Why? You don't let immense talent walk. Immense talent stays, warts and all. You gamble on immense talent. You gamble on Josh. I realize I'm reacting to the early season offensive rampage, and realize I'm flip-flopping from just two months ago, when Josh fell off the booze wagon again in that Dallas bar.

I haven't talked to anyone who doesn't want Hamilton to stay here. It's just that the money numbers gets lost in the mix. Some say the club should offer no more than $20 million for five years, or somewhere in that zip code.

Sorry. If you want Hamilton to stay here, the minimum bid starts at six years, $160 million, guaranteed. That's minimum.

I'd do that. I'd do more if it takes more.

On the executive level of the game, the answer is almost always the same in these situations:

You can't make an emotional decision. It's got to be a sound financial decision.

Easy to say, of course. What, the Pujols contract (10 years, $240 million), that was a sound financial decision? The Fielder contract (nine years, $214 million) that was a sound financial decision? Joey Votto and his new contract (10 years, $225 million), that's sound?

Baseball isn't exactly famous for making sound financial decisions. But just because other teams pay stupid money, and with the Angels now in panic over Albert's awful start, is stupid money in the best interest of the Rangers in the long term?

With Josh, I think the stupid money gamble is worth the immense talent return. But it's just an opinion without having to reach into my own hip pocket.

Then there was another opinion.

Early Wednesday morning, Nolan Ryan the Hall of Famer and Nolan Ryan the baseball fan admitted to still being stunned over what he had watched on TV the night before.

"It truly is amazing to see what that kind of talent can do, and really, what is the limit?" he asked, before promptly answering his own question:

"The sky, that's the limit. I don't know if there is a limit when the focus is there and when the health is there."

But then there's the "other" Nolan. The team president, the part-owner, and the Nolan with the responsibility of recommending to his ownership group the amount of money to pony up for a player. Ryan discusses it with GM Jon Daniels, and then Nolan takes it to be board of directors.

Right now, that Nolan number would be...?

Ryan, laughing, answered, "I can give you my truthful answer, because I don't know, so it's the truth when I say I don't know."

I can believe that. Many of the answers, of course, rest with Hamilton and his agent, an agent who Daniels stays in regular contact with. Does Josh want to re-sign here without playing the total free agency game in the fall? Also, would he re-sign here for how much and for how many years?

Hamilton has wisely backed off his comments of the last year after taking heavy criticism in late February, at the start of spring training, for saying, "I don't owe the Rangers anything."

But he's made it clear that his stance will be no hometown discount, playing here is not his No. 1 priority, and that money talks and walks because he owes it to the players' union to make a massive haul.

There have been harsh words in the past for Hamilton from this space over all that, but Josh saw the Pujols money in the off-season. He saw the Fielder money. Those are one-dimensional offensive players. Josh is a 5-tool stud. Pujols and Fielder, of course, cannot approach his overall skill level.

But Josh has his demons and he has his injuries, and he's got a body that is worn beyond his soon to be age of 31.

When Hamilton went into relapse and created some very ugly PR in February at a Dallas bar, the word from here was he had cost himself millions in future contract dollars from the Rangers or anyone else.

But then the games started in April. With Hamilton now leading baseball in almost every offensive category, and with his great play in center field, and with his talent on full display, I'm not sure at the moment Josh cost himself anything other than personal embarrassment.

Performance overcomes all.

Just a guess, and it's only a guess, but at the end of Arizona spring training, a mere six weeks ago, Josh probably could have been signed for his terms of six years, $150 million, all guaranteed.

The Rangers, at the time, would have been considered nuts for investing that much into demons and injuries unless there were "out" clauses for the club after each season.

At the moment, of course, that number would probably be a bargain, even at 25 mil a year guaranteed.

So it goes, however, in baseball. Hamilton thus far has answered the "contract year" call. Stay on the field and produce big. He has and he has.